'War of the roads': Cycling fines in Manchester plummet but safety concerns remain

'War of the roads': Cycling fines in Manchester plummet but safety concerns remain

Fixed penalties for Manchester’s cyclists have dropped by 18%, MM can reveal... however road safety campaigners are still frustrated with the lack of progress.

Figures obtained through an FOI request to Greater Manchester Police (GMP) show 121 fines were issued from June-December 2014 compared to 147 the previous six months.

The top two penalties were for ‘cycling on the pavement’ and ‘contravening traffic sign/road sign markings’.

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The scheme, known as ‘Operation Considerate’, was enforced by GMP in 2014 after they came under intense scrutiny for fines issued under a former policy known as ‘Operation Grimaldi’, which racked up the highest number of fines in 2013-14 but was inefficient according to GMP’s Inspector Paul Rowe.

“The course offered with Operation Grimaldi was very labour intensive and for two days of the operation there would be three to four evening training sessions at a local fire station. This would not be sustainable for Operation Considerate,” said Inspector Rowe.

GMP targeted irresponsible cycling on the roads of Greater Manchester and accident hotspots, in particular along Oxford Road and Wilmslow Road.

Cyclists were given the option of attending a cycling safety course at GMP’s discretion instead of paying the fine though, at £50 a go, fines were viewed as costly and unfair punishment by many cyclists.

They criticised the scheme because it was felt that GMP were targeting them unfairly and the same rules and penalties were not being applied to all other forms of traffic.

Inspector Rowe added: “It is fair to say that various groups from the cycling community contacted the Police Senior Leaders Team feeling that they were being picked on and singled out, even though motorists were prosecuted for offences.

“Those involving cyclists were able to attend an ‘Operation Considerate’ training session, where the aim would be to educate all road users to be considerate to each other.

“The operation commenced with two weeks of engagement and education with all road users and then two weeks of enforcement.”

Pete Abel, Manchester’s representative for the ‘Love Your Bike’ campaign, is involved with Manchester City Council’s cycling ambition ‘Cycle City’ (aka Velocity 2025) and said changing people’s attitudes rather than just enforcing quick fines was vital.

“There’s still a lot of criticism about whether they are focusing on the right people, but you can see the Police are under pressure from all sides,” he said.

“They are now talking to or fining everybody. Why don’t they continue to offer the free cycle training that exists in Manchester?

“In Leicestershire or Cambridge, what they say is ‘We’re going to give you a ticket, but if you come to the police station with your lights and receipts we’ll strike out your ticket’.

"It’s the behaviour you want to change – a fine won’t change their behaviour.”

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), who oversee transport and travel across the city, took over responsibility for cycling in 2011 and are spearheading the new cycling regeneration scheme for the first time.

This £45million long-term investment aims to increase cycle journeys by 10% in the city and deliver 56km of largely segregated cycle routes.

However many in the cycling community have commented that the infrastructure and new plans are still inadequate and the expansion of the tram network, Metrolink scheme, is conflicting with the cycling regeneration plans.

“They have said there will be no path or shared path even across St Peter’s Square and it’s within the power of the city council to do that, but at the moment there’s going to be no provision,” added Abel.

“So when you get to the top of the nice new route on Oxford Street, where do you go?

“Now cyclists have to cycle on the pavement and get a fine or get off and walk. There’s no legal way for a cyclist to get across it by bike.”

Helen Ramsden, Head of Travel Choices and Active Travel at TfGM, said they were working with Manchester City Council to investigate cycle route options in the city centre.

“Like any modern city, there is a limited amount of road space to develop new infrastructure to benefit cyclists.

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“After the initial awareness raised for ‘Operation Considerate’ at subsequent events, enforcement action was taken by GMP. Ultimately, the issuing of fixed penalty notices is a matter for GMP.”

Inspector Rowe added: “We, and a number of other forces, are looking to a national online course for cycling offenders but unfortunately this will not be free."

GMP will be at Piccadilly station this Saturday to offer free bike marking, along with a cycle doctor to advise on repairs, from 10-2pm.

Main image courtesy of Transport for Greater Manchester, with thanks.

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Comments

weAs a daily cyclist and a Lucas councillor with a strong interest in active travel and the environment and in ways to change behaviour I 100% agree with Pete Abel that training courses and 'producers' to bring lights to police could be much more beneficial than fines. I really liked the initiative to hand out free bike lights, no questions asked, at roadside that we had around September 2014.

Would also say that unlike Operation Grimaldi the new version Operation Considerate is seen as more even handed as there were approximately the same number of fines to motors contravening Bike Box or ASL (Advanced Stop Line) rules as there were to cyclists.

TFGM Committee and the ten districts of Greater Manchester very much welcome the investment from successive governments in cycling in our city. But we are only too aware that these Cycle City Ambition Grant figures are around the same for a single Mini Holland in London as for the whole of a conurbation approaching £3 million people and with plenty more commuters and visitors able to cycle in from nearby East Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and so on.

in the City of Manchester alone we have 18 major district centres and even the sum of money we may be allocated to improve bike routes through the city centre (at the moment) is only about 5% of one Mini Holland budget.

That is a clearly ridiculous disparity between the capital and the second city.

There are positives. The largely separated route from Didsbury to the City Centre along the Wilmslow Road and Oxford Road corridors and others like it to follow, and canal side and other green routes, and cycle training and hubs and partnerships are all positives from Greater Manchester wide funding. All ten Districts will have physical infrastructure schemes in the second round of Cycle City Ambition if our proposals to Department for Transport are accepted.

Districts are also rolling out 20 mph even on some fairly big roads and I hope they will not lose their nerve on this as the pay back to the public purse is pretty much within one year. Perhaps the new proposed devolution of oversight on NHS, if it goes ahead, will make it easier to recognise and bank these savings?

But there is a long and winding road turning what is often discontinuous, poorly maintained, legally weak, paint led "infrastructure" into a network fit for a Cycling City.

The disparity in funding doesn't help and as the TFGMC cycling and active travel champion I am certainly supporting the case for more funding for active travel, possibly in a fund to parallel the Greater Manchester Travel Fund paying for the big schemes, and also proper cycle proofing considered and as far as possible delivered on all new highway schemes.

At a recent presentation on GM's Transport Budget the C word was not even mentioned.

Although the Cycling and Active Travel budget is dwarfed by other modes of travel in terms of both capital and revenue the number of Travel To Work and Travel To Study journeys into the regional centre by active travel already exceeds 20% and there really ought to be London size budgets to support the development of that welcome behaviour.

Health and well being, congestion and air quality, financial savings for families and quite simply better living streets for everyone flow from having good active travel policies and seeing these on the ground. Fully separated infrastructure suitable for 8 to eighty year olds is the mantra. Providing as much of that as soon as we can is clearly important if we are to get beyond confident cyclists.

In the meantime though we must I believe maintain and improve the in carriageway and shared surface cycling routes for those who already commute and deserve a decent surface and wide lanes unobstructed by parking. And we must improve the permeability of a calm and pleasant city centre where inevitably there are also commercial loading and passenger transport needs.

New York City provides some good examples here. They have massively increased the cycle share of travel there over the last eight years. With some exemplary fully separated and green routes but just over 90% separated only with paint and signs, sometimes using parked cars as an additional buffer as we will on some of our schemes, or otherwise actually shared with motor vehicles.

Their mode share has increased by four fold I believe with no increase in total accidents and therefore a great drop in the level of collisions per mile cycled and per cyclist.

We have a very lively cycling lobby in Greater Manchester. We also have very engaged politicians at GM level with now very regular and frequent cycling reports to TFGMC often generated the most interest and debate. We will need a bit of patience to see us through a transformation to a true Cycling City and, if the Government and regional and local stakeholders, including businesses, are reading, we could do with a step change in money to go with the ambition and the will.

As a daily cyclist and a local councillor with a strong interest in active travel and the environment and in ways to change behaviour I 100% agree with Pete Abel that training courses and 'producers' to bring lights to police stations could be much more beneficial than fines. I really liked the initiative to hand out free bike lights, no questions asked, at roadside that we had around September 2014.

Would also say that unlike Operation Grimaldi the new version Operation Considerate is seen as more even handed as there were approximately the same number of fines to motors contravening Bike Box or ASL (Advanced Stop Line) rules as there were to cyclists.

TFGM Committee and the ten districts of Greater Manchester very much welcome the investment from successive governments in cycling in our city. But we are only too aware that these Cycle City Ambition Grant figures are around the same for a single Mini Holland in London as for the whole of a conurbation approaching £3 million people and with plenty more commuters and visitors able to cycle in from nearby East Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and so on.

in the City of Manchester alone we have 18 major district centres and even the sum of money we may be allocated to improve bike routes through the city centre (at the moment) is only about 5% of one Mini Holland budget!

That is a clearly ridiculous disparity between the capital and the second city.

There are positives. The largely separated route from Didsbury to the City Centre along the Wilmslow Road and Oxford Road corridors and others like it to follow, and canal side and other green routes, and cycle training and hubs and partnerships are all positives from Greater Manchester wide funding. All ten Districts will have physical infrastructure schemes in the second round of Cycle City Ambition, if our proposals to Department for Transport are accepted.

Districts are also rolling out 20 mph maximum speed limits even on some fairly big roads and I hope they will not lose their nerve on this as the pay back to the public purse never mind to injuries and damage to vehicles is pretty much within one year. Perhaps the new proposed devolution of oversight on NHS, if it goes ahead, will make it easier to recognise and bank these savings and fund active travel work?

There is a long and winding road ahead of us in turning what is often discontinuous, poorly maintained, legally weak, paint led "infrastructure" into a network fit for a Cycling City.

The disparity in funding doesn't help and as the TFGMC cycling and active travel champion I am certainly supporting the case for more funding for active travel, possibly in a new fund to parallel the Greater Manchester Travel Fund paying for the big schemes or as an account within it, and also proper cycle proofing considered carefully and as far as possible delivered on all new highway schemes.

At a recent presentation on GM's Transport Budget the C word was not even mentioned.

Although the Cycling and Active Travel budget is dwarfed by other modes of travel in terms of both capital and revenue I'm told that the number of Travel To Work and Travel To Study journeys into the regional centre by active travel already exceeds 20% and there really ought to be London size budgets to support the development of that welcome behaviour.

Health and well being, congestion and air quality, financial savings for families and quite simply better living streets for everyone flow from having good active travel policies and seeing these on the ground. Fully separated infrastructure suitable for 8 to eighty year olds is the mantra. Providing as much of that as soon as we can is clearly important if we are to get beyond confident cyclists.

In the meantime though we must I believe maintain and improve the in carriageway and shared surface cycling routes for those who already commute and deserve a decent surface and wide enough lanes unobstructed by parking, by gravel and litter, and by flooded grids. And we must improve the permeability of a calm and pleasant city centre where inevitably there are also commercial loading and passenger transport needs to be managed

New York City provides some good examples here. They have massively increased the cycle share of travel there over the last eight years. With some exemplary fully separated and green routes but just over 90% separated only or largely with paint and signs, sometimes using parked cars as an additional buffer as we will on some of our schemes, or otherwise actually shared with motor vehicles.

Their mode share has increased by four fold I believe with no increase in total accidents and therefore a great drop in the level of collisions per mile cycled and per cyclist.

We have a very lively cycling lobby in Greater Manchester. We also have very engaged politicians at GM level with now very regular and frequent cycling reports to TFGMC often generated the most interest and debate. We will need a bit of patience to see us through a transformation to a true Cycling City and, if the Government and regional and local stakeholders, including businesses, are reading, we could do with a step change in money to go with the ambition and the will.